Ahmedabad verdict: ‘Keeping accused in society like letting loose man-eating leopard’

On their motive, the verdict said the accused were affiliated to prohibited organisations like SIMI and had established the Indian Mujahideen. “To take revenge (for the) 2002 Godhra riots, they believed falsely that Narendra Modi’s Gujarat government was an anti-Muslim government and wanted to overthrow the government… Islamic rule can be established was the motive of the accused”.

Seeking a separate department to assist their victims, the order said: “The accused pursued education in jails at the cost of the government, hospital treatment at the cost of the government, meals in jails at the government’s cost, visits to their families at the cost of jail… One does not know if such kind of government support was extended to the families of those who were killed or injured in the blasts.”

The court relied on the confessional statements by some accused that political leaders, including Modi, were targeted, using it to justify charges under the UAPA and IPC section 121A of “war on State”. Four of the accused had given confessional statements, with one of them, Imran Imbrahim Sheikh, now sentenced to death, saying that in December 2007, speeches were given at Wagamon in Kerala, where Safdar Nagori (now on death row) talked about “jihad”, “going to Afghanistan for ‘hizrat’ (exodus), “mass killing” and that “political leader Narendra Modi was to be targeted”.

Special judge Patel said: “Death sentence is the only and ultimate punishment for such terror-minded accused… All can be called youths and can be considered to be capable of taking terror training, making bombs and knowing other things related to bombs. They have several cases pending against them and in many verdict has come. Keeping this in mind, it is clear that they are criminal minded.”

Notably, during cross-examination, several investigators said they had not looked into the links of the accused to other blasts across the country, particularly to blasts linked to Hindutva groups. They also admitted that no computer or hard disks were seized with respect to the terror emails said to have been sent out by the IM.

On the fact that no explosives or weapons were recovered from the accused at the time of their arrest, the court said, “The accused were arrested long after the event, which is why no weapon or explosives were recovered.”

On investigators’ admission that they did not ask the sellers of cycles on which the bombs were planted for the descriptions or names of the buyers, the judge said a seller could not provide such details given his number of customers.

The serial blasts had killed 56 people and left over 200 injured. Apart from 38 given death, 11 were convicted to life, and 28 acquitted.